DEA data: Pacific NW leads the nation in marijuana availability

How law enforcement agencies rate the availability of marijuana in their jurisdictions. The graphs range (left to right) from 2007-2011 and the last bar on the right is 2013. The survey wasn’t done in 2012. Click on the image for a bigger picture.

Roughly 97 percent of law enforcement agencies in the Pacific Northwest rate the availability of marijuana as “high” in their jurisdiction this year, according to the latest National Drug Threat Assessment Survey released today by the DEA.

Compare that against the other U.S. regions (See the map above, and more maps below as well as the full report), and you get a winner … of sorts:

West Central: 82 percent

Southwest: 87 percent

Great Lakes: 90 percent

Southeast: 82 percent

Mid-Atlantic: 95 percent

New York/New Jersey: 91 percent

New England: 93 percent

Florida/Caribbean: 79 percent

What does that mean? Well, for one, not much has changed in the PNW since 2007 when 95 percent said availability of cannabis was high. For another — just as critics of the war on drugs have repeatedly claimed — marijuana is prevalent despite decades of heavy law enforcement actions. And, the only folks benefiting from that huge black market are the black-marketeers.

That’s worth keeping in mind as Washington and Colorado get going selling state-licensed marijuana. Because despite all the problems likely in these two systems and despite the diversion of legal pot out of state and even into the hands of kids (who have consistently said for years that marijuana is easy to get), the alternative is and has been a vibrant black market.

Click on the image for a bigger picture.

The DEA also reports that current marijuana use (past month use) is up by 21 percent nationwide between 2007 and 2011 and that “marijuana-related emergency department visits” have climbed from 290,565 in 2006 to 461,028 in 2010, or 59 percent.

Transnational Criminal Organizations (organized crime coordinated across national borders) and criminal groups will increasingly exploit the opportunities for marijuana cultivation and trafficking created in states that allow “medical marijuana” grows and have legalized marijuana sales and possession. Marijuana abuse levels will increase over the next decade, particularly if its use continues to be increasingly accepted by adolescents.

That’s an important conclusion to keep in mind, because it’s likely to hold true until society grows more accustomed to having legally available marijuana and the legal market overtakes the black market in sales.

But it is also important to hear what the DEA is saying: “Legalization will make the social consequence worse than during the war on drugs era.”

But, that depends on how we all want to balance out social consequences: Legalize and manage consequences of liberalized use through complex social responses (like we do for cigarettes and alcohol). Or, accepted a high prison rate and all that goes with it, in order to keep the leaky lid down on “Pandora’s box.”